SC Reserves Verdict On Plea Seeking 100% EVM-VVPAT Verification, ECI Denies Mismatch In Votes

The Supreme Court on Thursday concluded hearing submissions by petitioners and the Election Commission Of India (ECI) in the plea seeking 100% verification of EVMs with VVPAT and reserved it verdict.

Prashant Bhushan appearing for ADR contended that every voter has a fundamental right to verify that their vote has been 'recorded as cast' and 'counted as recorded'.

Source : PTI

The Supreme Court on Thursday concluded hearing submissions by petitioners and the Election Commission Of India (ECI) in the plea seeking 100% verification of EVMs with VVPAT and reserved it verdict.

A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta reserved the verdict today after hearing submissions by all parties at length.

The Association for Democratic Reforms filed a plea in the top court in 2023, stating that the current practice by the ECI to count the electronically recorded votes in all of the EVMs and cross-verify EVMs with the VVPATs in only 5 randomly selected polling booth per assembly constituency is not sufficient.

Prashant Bhushan appearing for ADR contended that every voter has a fundamental right to verify that their vote has been 'recorded as cast' and 'counted as recorded'.

The top court concluded hearing and reserved vedict just a day before the Lok Sabha elections begins. The writ petition has  been moved under Article 32 for enforcing the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India.

No Mismatch In Votes Caste and Votes Counted In 2019 Lok Sabha Polls, ECI Tells SC

The ECI made its submissions in the court and explained in great detail how the EVMs and VVPATs work. The ECI also responded to the 2019 news report by the 'The Quint' that alleged discrepancies between votes polled and votes counted in the previous 2019 General Lok Sabha Elections. The petitioners had cited that report in the court while making their arguments against the credibilty of EVMs.

The report said that there was a mismatch between the votes polled and votes counted in 373 constituencies. 

Responding to this argument, the ECI explained that the discrepancy was with the live voter turnout data which was uploaded on its website, and not with the EVM. The ECI further explained that the data was published on the website on a real-time basis based on input from the presiding officers of polling stations not the EVMs.

The ECI further submitted in the court that there was no inconsistency between the votes casted as per Form 17C under the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, and the declared results as per Form 20.

Form 17 under the Conduct of Election Rules 1951 gives an account of the number of votes recorded in a voting machine. And Form 20 is the final result sheet for recording the result of voting at polling stations. 

VVPAT Only Printing Machine: Dy Election Commissioner Explains Working Of VVPAT-EVM Machines

Nitish Vyas, Senior Deputy Election Commissioner was present in court in person and explained in great detail how the three units of EVM system work.

Vyas explained that EVM has three component- 1. Baloting Unit (BU), 2. Control Unit (CU) And 3. VVPAT

When voter comes inside the polling booth the presiding officer enables the machine. He explained that Balloting Unit is candidate agnostic. When a voter presses a button next to a symbol, then the BU will only say the number to the the Control Unit. Then CU tells VVPAT that print the symbol corresponding to the number recorded by CU.

It is then visible for seven seconds to the voter. After the VVPAT is printed and dropped into the box, CU gets a signal that the said serial number got one vote.

The petitioners seek the following directions to the ECI:

1) To mandatorily cross verify the count in EVMs with votes that have been verifiably ‘recorded as cast’ by the voter through the VVPATs by counting all VVPAT slips.

2) Quashing and setting aside of Guideline No. 14.7(h) of the Manual on Electronic Voting Machine and VVPAT dated August, 2023 as framed and issued by Election Commission of India in so far as it allows only sequential verification of VVPAT slips resulting in undue delay in counting of all VVPAT slips.

3) The petitioner is also seeking a direction that the voter should be allowed to physically drop VVPAT slip as generated by the VVPAT in a ballot box to ensure that the voter’s ballot has been ‘counted as recorded’. 

4) A direction to the ECI to make the glass of the VVPAT machine transparent and duration of the light long enough for the voter to see the paper recording his vote cut and drop into the drop box so as to ensure greater satisfaction, which was the purport of earlier judgments by Supreme Court in 2013 in 'Dr. Subramanian Swamy vs Election Commission of India' and another in 2019 in N. Chandrababu Naidu case.